


Straightening The Threads

by mad_martha



Series: Coming Home [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Angst, Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-09
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:59:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_martha/pseuds/mad_martha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry tries to make sense of his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Straightening The Threads

**Author's Note:**

> When I posted Coming Home one or two people asked about Draco Malfoy, who was briefly mentioned in that story as having suffered an accident during the war that left him in St. Mungo's for the rest of his life. When I wrote Coming Home I originally intended to have a scene where Harry visited him, but it simply didn't fit into the storyline and so was never written. But people like to know about Draco and I was mildly interested in the subject, and so this developed. I don't think it's what people were expecting when they asked, but it was an interesting one to write, mainly because I started out thinking it would be a sympathetic story and it developed into something rather more complicated.

Harry always found himself becoming a little restless around May.  It had been that time of year when the final and worst battles with Voldemort and his followers had occurred, and he had confronted the Dark wizard for the last time.  Harry had never made a note of the exact date and certainly didn't ever commemorate it in any way, but somehow it was always on his mind.

This year he was teaching at Hogwarts when the sensation set in.  He might have been able to ignore it, given the pressure of work, but an overheard snatch of conversation in the Staff Room one evening alerted him to the fact that wizarding Britain _did_ formally commemorate the end of the war, and he supposed that he had always been aware of that fact - in a very peripheral way, considering that he hadn't lived in England for many years after the war - but he hadn't really considered what it might mean for him as a teacher at Hogwarts.  In fact, nearly the entire staff complement and a sizeable chunk of the student body attended the Hogsmeade memorial services.

Harry didn't want to be involved at all.  It wasn't his way to remember the dead in a formal service and metaphorically dance on Voldemort's grave in the process, and he was quick to take measures to prevent himself being dragged into anything against his will.

The Headmistress was disappointed when he formally requested leave of absence over that weekend.

"I did hope you might join us at the service in Hogsmeade, Harry," she said, tapping a finger on the parchment of his request form.  "People will be surprised at your absence, considering that you work at the school now."

Harry couldn't suppress a wince.  "I'm sorry, Professor, but even after all this time I'm not particularly keen to expose myself to people's morbid curiosity.  I don't want to seem disrespectful, but I haven't attended a memorial service since the first one after the war and I'm not about to start now.  It's not like I'm ever going to forget, after all; I remember the dead every day.  It's just … I did what I did.  I don't want or need to be reminded of it."

She still wasn't happy, but he thought he detected a touch of sympathy in Professor McGonagall's manner as she picked up her quill and signed the request form.

"Very well, Professor Potter.  I'll expect to see you back here on Monday morning."

"Thank you," Harry said, very relieved.

 

xXx

 

The Gryffindor Common Room was full of the usual noise and bustle that came with a Friday afternoon when several of the years were released from classes after lunch.  There was some surprise when Harry walked through the portrait hole with Scruffy, but he wasn't there to chastise anyone and he only nodded in a friendly way to the assembled kids on his way to the stairs up to the dormitories.  Gryffindor didn't have a head of house at the moment, but that job might be his if he stayed beyond the one term.

The second year boys shared a room halfway up the staircase, and Harry tapped politely on the door before walking inside.  All four of them were there and from the look of things they were preparing to go outside with their brooms.

"Nipping out for some practice?" he asked, and he grinned when Tedjminder was the only one to voice a vehement dissent.  "I won't hold you up.  Sirius, I'm popping down to London for the weekend.  Do you mind looking after Scruffy while I'm gone?  Professor McGonagall says it's okay for him to stay in your dorm for a couple of nights, provided there's no fuss."

Sirius was quite happy to do so - which came as no surprise to Harry, who spent a goodly portion of his spare time preventing Scruffy from sneaking off to his son.  Dogs were not on the list of animals approved for students at Hogwarts, although the professors had more leeway.

"Are you going to the house?" Sirius asked, as he accepted the lurcher's leash.

"Of course.  Is there something you want from home?  I'll be going to Diagon Alley as well."

"Mr. Lupin promised he'd find me a proper book about werewolves at Easter, but I haven't heard from him.  I thought maybe he might have owled it to Grimmauld Place."

Harry raised his brows.  "He _wrote_ the best book on the subject years ago, but it might be out of print.  He knows to owl things to you here, anyway, but I'll pop in and see him if you like."

"Thanks, Dad."

"No problem.  I'll see you on Sunday night then."

Sirius grinned at him.  "Are you seeing … you-know-who?"

Harry had to remind himself that the euphemism didn't have the same connotations for his son as it did for the previous generation.  Then he realised what the boy was really asking and gave him a mock scowl.  He crooked a finger at him.  Sirius's grin widened, encouraged by the sniggers of his friends, but he sidled up to Harry obediently.

"A word of advice, sunshine."  Harry bent until he could whisper in the boy's ear, "Only girls gossip about other people's boyfriends."

Sirius squawked indignantly and thumped his father's arm.

 

xXx

 

"I don't suppose I need to ask why you've come home at Memorial Weekend," Ron murmured later that evening.

"Escaping the morbidly curious masses at Hogsmeade Church," Harry replied.  He blinked drowsily.  "Why - you don't attend the services, do you?"

"I used to.  Luna liked to go, and you know what Mum's like."

"But not anymore?"

"Not for a couple of years."  Ron paused.  "I visit Luna instead.  She died on a Memorial Weekend, you know."

"No, I didn't … I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

There was a long, comfortable silence.

"What are you going to do instead?" Ron asked him finally.

"Dunno."  Harry shifted a little.  "Doesn't matter what I'm doing or where I am - it always seems to be on my mind.  I wish people wouldn't make such a big fuss about it.  For crying out loud - I _killed_ someone.  And it's not that remembering is a problem exactly, but I don't like the triumph some people seem to feel about it.  He was a person once, after all, and someone not that far removed from the kind of person I was."

"It's easy when you don't have intimate contact with what happened," Ron replied.  "We can teach our kids about it all we like, but when they haven't had direct experience of Voldemort and his people, there's always going to be a gap in their understanding."

"It's not the kids that bother me.  It's the people our age who holed up in their houses and pretended it wasn't happening, only to reappear when it was all over and cheer."  Harry shifted again, restlessly.  "I didn't cheer.  I can't even remember exactly how I felt anymore.  Numb, probably."

That didn't surprise Ron, who remembered only too well having to help Lupin drag a shell-shocked Harry away from what was left of Lord Voldemort.

"Try not to let it bother you so much," he said now, and he pulled Harry more closely against him.

"Thanks for … you know.  Being here," Harry said awkwardly into his shoulder.  "I won't bug you or anything over the weekend."

"Pillock.  You can bug me as much as you want, you know that."

 

xXx

 

Harry slept late on Saturday morning, and when he finally dragged himself out of bed it was to face the usual excessive coverage of Memorial Weekend in the _Daily Prophet_. 

There was a synopsis of events twenty-odd years ago, complete with enough inaccuracies to ensure an overflowing Letters page in the next issue, and a two-page spread that listed the fallen of both wars.  This was standard, although Harry was mildly horrified to discover that his reappearance had triggered a couple of extra articles about his role in the events, complete with 'then' and 'now' photographs.  He could have done without being confronted with a picture of his haggard nineteen year old self at Dumbledore's funeral.

Then another, less-laudatory article about the Death Eaters caught his eye, including those who had been caught and incarcerated and the very few who had got away.  A name caught Harry's eye: _…and to this day it is not known to this correspondent what became of the son of the traitor Lucius Malfoy._

Harry frowned.  Surely Hermione had told him only a few months ago that Draco Malfoy was in St. Mungo's?  He'd assumed that if she knew then it must be common knowledge, but perhaps not.  He folded the newspaper up and sipped his tea thoughtfully.

Long-term psychiatric patients at St. Mungo's were usually only kept there if they had nowhere else to go or they were too difficult for their families to manage.  Which meant that Draco, like Gilderoy Lockhart, was a charity patient, for his family's assets had been seized by the Ministry at some point, and Harry knew what that meant.  The staff at St. Mungo's did their best but if a long-term patient had no friends or relatives to give extra care, then life could be rather grim. 

He put his mug down and slid down in the chair until he could tilt his head back and look at the ceiling in relative comfort.  And he sighed.

Draco had been a Death Eater without a doubt; Harry had seen the Dark Mark on his arm more than once and at no time had anyone suggested that he might have recanted.  But the blond wizard had ended up in St. Mungo's because of an accident - he'd been caught in the crossfire between another Death Eater and an Auror, and the two curses hitting him at the same time had permanently scrambled his mind.

Harry hadn't been responsible for any of that.  But his conscience nagged at him, because he knew just what his old mentor in Nepal would have said to that.  Had he ever tried to divert Draco from his course?  No.  Why not?  Because Draco wouldn't have listened.  Why did he let that stop him trying?  Because ….

Because Draco Malfoy had been an obnoxious little prick and he and Harry had hated each other.

It took no effort at all for Harry to conjure up Tenlieng's expression at hearing something like _that_.  In a voice as dry as dust the elderly wizard would have pointed out that _Harry_ had been an obnoxious little prick when he fell flat on his face at Tenlieng's feet, and where would Harry be now if Tenlieng had taken the view that obnoxious young men weren't worth the effort?

 _The threads of your life are too tangled_ , the old man's voice whispered in his mind.  _Straighten them to the best of your ability or you will never know peace._

Harry could argue until he was blue in the face that Draco's fate was not his responsibility.  But it was a fact that he had never attempted to divert the other wizard from the wrong course and the very least he could do now was discover if there was anything he could do to alleviate a little of his old nemesis's suffering.

The irony did not escape Harry.  Having come home to London to avoid the Memorial services, he would now be voluntarily confronting something he felt sure would be far more trying.

 

xXx

 

St. Mungo's didn't change much, although the entrance had moved from the old, shabby Muggle department store building that Harry remembered from his youth, to a another, smaller shop a short distance away, an odd little place that was ostensibly the public face of an obscure charity.  Following Neville Longbottom's instructions, he spoke the name of the hospital as he opened the door and a portkey hidden under the threshold whisked him away, to deposit him in the reception area of St. Mungo's.

The queue for the enquiries desk was thankfully short.  Harry presented himself, feeling unpleasantly conspicuous, and said, "I've come to visit a long-term patient on the spell damage ward."

"Name?" the witch asked in a bored voice.

"Draco Malfoy."  He half expected a united gasp of horror from the people milling around the reception desk, but apparently no one but the witch was listening and she patently didn't care.

"Level Four, Janus Thickey Ward.  Next!"

Harry opted to climb the stairs, marvelling at how quickly the world had forgotten one of the more infamous names of the war.  He couldn't decide if the mass indifference made Malfoy's predicament better or worse, although it did occur to him that in his better days Malfoy himself would have been thoroughly peeved by the lack of interest.

It was quiet on the spell damage ward but Harry couldn't help thinking, as he slowly walked inside, that it resembled the dormitories in some of the displaced wizards' hostels he'd seen in Europe.  Only the obvious medical equipment - hospital beds, screens, potion trolleys etc. - betrayed its real purpose.  This was the ward Neville's parents had lived on until their deaths a few years ago and Gilderoy Lockhart had been released from only recently, according to Molly Weasley. 

A plump witch appeared from behind some curtains and smiled enquiringly.

"I've come to visit Draco Malfoy," Harry explained uncomfortably, and for the first time received a pair of raised brows.

"I see," the witch replied.  "And your name is?"

She knew his name, Harry could tell.  She just wanted confirmation. 

"Harry Potter."

"Very well, Mr. Potter.  Are you aware of the nature of Mr. Malfoy's condition?"

"Near total amnesia and some other spell damage affecting his - his rational processes."  Harry flushed slightly.  "Is that correct?  It's been a long time since it happened, and I wasn't terribly clear on the details even then."

"Essentially correct," she told him kindly, "although over the two decades that Mr. Malfoy has been with us, we have seen a measure of improvement.  You shouldn't expect great things, though.  He can talk properly and remembers how to feed and dress himself, but he won't be the man you remember from before the accident at all."

Malfoy's 'accident' had occurred less than a year after they left school; Harry had never known him in true manhood, but he didn't say so.  His stomach was beginning to clench nastily in anticipation.

"Does he recognise people?" he asked.

The witch hesitated.  "He recognises me," she said finally, "but he sees me all the time.  It's impossible to say otherwise, as his only visitors are healers and the Ministry official who comes to check on him once a year."

 _To see if he's fit to be transferred to Azkaban?_ Harry wondered, inexplicably irritated by the thought.  God, the man had surely paid enough for the crime of joining Voldemort and he hadn't been the worst of the Death Eaters by a long shot.  He hadn't had time to become much more than the arrogant brat he'd been at school.

"I brought a book," he said after a moment, displaying it.  "A friend told me that people in - in Mr. Malfoy's condition sometimes appreciate being read to."

The witch's face lightened.  "Now that's an excellent idea.  He doesn't have enough concentration to read himself, but he does like to be read to when someone has the time."  In a more gentle tone she added, "It's very kind of you to do this, Mr. Potter - considering your history."

Which made Harry feel even more uncomfortable.

 

xXx

 

They had cut his white-blond hair brutally short, like a convict rather than the resident of a psychiatric ward.  ("It's to stop him pulling it out when he feels stressed," the nurse said almost apologetically.)  His sharp-featured face was very thin, his grey eyes huge, and the worn second-hand robes he was dressed in emphasised the lack of flesh on his frame.  Once again, Harry was reminded of the hostels he'd worked in around Europe, full of wizards fallen on hard times and forced to live on the charity of their communities.

Draco was sitting hunched in an armchair by the window and didn't look up when Harry slipped into the seat opposite him.  His eyes were fixed blankly on the street outside.

The nurse touched his shoulder gently to get his attention.  "Draco - Draco?  There's someone here to see you, dear.  An old friend."

Harry half expected him to move slowly like an old man, so it came as a surprise when Draco jumped at the nurse's voice and looked around sharply.  Incredibly, when he turned to Harry the hauteur was still there, the shoulders straightening and the chin raised sharply.  It was only when their eyes met that Harry realised there was no hint of recognition there, only vague curiosity.

Draco licked his lips and said in an unexpectedly hoarse voice, "A friend?"

Harry remembered something then - someone, possibly Nymphadora Tonks, telling him about finding Draco after the 'accident' and how he'd been huddled under a bush, screaming and screaming until his voice gave out.

The nurse was looking at him meaningfully, but Harry found he had to swallow before he could summon up a weak smile and say "Hello Malfoy."

Nothing in the other man's expression changed, except to look slightly puzzled.

"Do I know you?" he asked.

"You used to," Harry said, feeling desperately uncomfortable.  "We went to school together … many years ago."

"Really?"

"Yes."  He braced himself.  "My name's Harry Potter."

He didn't know what he was expecting when he said it.  Some reaction, he supposed, even knowing that Draco didn't recognise his own healer from one day to the next.  For some reason he expected his name to penetrate where nothing else had over the past two decades. 

Draco reached across the little table that stood between them and offered Harry his right hand.

"Pleased to meet you, Harry Potter."

Nonplussed, Harry accepted the hand and shook it.

"There!" the nurse said, clearly pleased by this positive beginning.  "Mr. Potter's brought a book to read to you, Draco dear.  Isn't that kind?  You know how much you enjoy that."

"That's very good of you," Draco said to Harry.  His tone was civil and amiable, and somehow Harry found that harder to take than he would have had the other man reacted with aggression or distress or even no reaction at all.  They might have been two strangers meeting over a Gobstones board in a Diagon Alley coffee house.

"I'll just leave you two together, then," the nurse said, beaming.  She paused just before leaving.  "Cup of tea, Mr. Potter?  Draco always has his about now."

"Yes - yes, please," Harry said helplessly, and he watched her retreat.  When he turned back, Draco was looking at him questioningly. 

"I really don't remember you, I'm afraid," he said, and there was a hint of an apology in his tone which nearly flattened Harry completely.  "You say we met at school?"

"Yes - at Hogwarts.  Do you remember Hogwarts?"

"No, but I'm sure you're right," was the polite reply.

Silence fell between them and Harry wondered what on earth he should say.  He didn't know what he'd been expecting from the encounter, but this wasn't it.

"How … how are you, Malfoy?" he asked finally. 

"I'm quite well," the other man said agreeably.  "Yourself?"

"I'm fine."

There was another expectant silence.

"I'm sorry," Harry said, with a sigh.  "I know this sounds stupid, but I'm not sure what to say to you.  It's been such a long time, you see."

"I really don't remember you," Draco said.  For the first time a touch of confusion came into his face.  "I'm sorry - what did you say your name was again?"

"Potter," Harry said.  "Harry Potter."

"Ah.  No, I don't remember you at all."  He reached across the table again, offering his hand.  "Pleased to meet you."

Harry looked at Draco wonderingly.  He'd forgotten who Harry was in less than five minutes.

Finally, he took the proffered hand and shook it gently.

"Pleased to meet you too, Draco," he said quietly.  "I know you don't remember, but we went to the same school.  We were there for seven years, but when we left there was a war and we … we did different things.  I was very lucky, because I came out without getting badly injured, but you weren't quite so lucky, I'm sorry to say.  After the war I went abroad for many years, but I came home recently and I thought I should come and visit you.  And here I am."

"Thank you," Draco said mildly.  "It's very good of you to explain."

"Not at all."  Harry put the book he'd brought on the table.  "Someone suggested that you might like me to read to you.  Shall I?"

For the first time, a touch of real animation entered the other man's face.

"Yes, please.  I'd like that."

Harry nodded and opened the book.

 

xXx

 

"I'm starting to think you're a bit of a masochist on the quiet," Ron said, as he smoothed the newly-turned handle of a broom with fine grade sandpaper. 

"Not guilty," Harry said wryly.  He hooked his feet behind the rungs of the tall stool he was perching on, and cupped his hands around his mug of tea.  "Masochists _enjoy_ making themselves suffer.  Believe me, I didn't enjoy visiting Malfoy much."

"Then why on earth did you go?  You must be barking, when it obviously doesn't matter to him whether people visit him or not."

Harry hesitated, thinking about the look on Draco Malfoy's face when he'd read to him.

"I don't think that's true," he said.

Ron gave him a quizzical look.  "You just told me that he couldn't remember your name from one minute to the next."

"But how relevant is that?  Nobody visits him, Ron, nobody, except nosy healer trainees and a bloke from the Ministry once a year.  And the Ministry bloke only goes there to make sure he hasn't recovered enough to be locked up in Azkaban instead.  Malfoy might not have been able to remember my name, let alone who I actually was, but he appreciated me being there and reading to him for an hour or two.  It made a difference to his day, even if he doesn't remember it tomorrow.  The nurses only stop and chat to him when they've got a spare couple of minutes - some of them probably don't even do that.  The rest of the time he sits and stares out of the window."

Ron was silent for a while, running the piece of sandpaper gently over the broom handle.  Finally he looked up.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" he said mildly.  "You're talking like it's a terrible crime that he's spent twenty years in hospital with nobody really caring what happens to him.  But in case you've forgotten, Harry, he was a Death Eater and the night he got his head scrambled he was out with a bunch of other Death Eaters burning down the house of a Muggleborn witch and her family.  There are plenty of people who'll tell you he got a lot better than he deserved, considering that the family in question nearly died."

"Did he?" Harry asked bluntly.

"I can't answer that," Ron replied heavily.  "Plenty of people will say that his father died too easily considering what he did.  I probably said it a few times just after the war.  But nowadays … I don't know.  If you put them in Azkaban, you have to feed them and keep them and the question's always there about whether the punishment fits the crime and whether it's right that law-abiding citizens should pay for their upkeep after losing family members in the war as well.  But if you execute them, there's always the question over whether they really _were_ as guilty as everyone thinks, and they become martyrs to the ones who got away, and on top of that you have to ask yourself if a civilised society should kill in the first place, even as a deterrent.  And then there's Draco Malfoy.

"I know this much.  My brother Percy was the biggest prat ever born, and he never stopped being a prat even when it was obvious that he was in the wrong.  He never really apologised to Mum and Dad for the things he said and did that first year after Voldemort came back, and then he got himself killed in that half-arsed Ministry attempt to negotiate with Voldemort.  But …."  Ron took a deep breath and quietly put the broom handle on his workbench.  "The fact that he was a stupid prat didn't give Voldemort any right to kill him.  Or order him killed, not that it matters which it was.  The person who gave the order was just as guilty of murder as the person killed him, and the people who stood and watched and laughed as he was tortured first were as guilty as the torturer."

He looked at Harry then and although his face was calm, his eyes were very bleak.  "Don't get me wrong, mate, because I can see what you're saying.  But I find it a bit difficult to feel sorry for Malfoy when he's alive and living in reasonable comfort, with everything laid on, and my brother's been dead these twenty years."  He looked away again.  "I don't suppose we'll ever know if he was there when Percy died, but it doesn't really matter, does it?  He was still a Death Eater.  He bought into the ideas that ended up killing Percy and a lot of other people."

Harry looked down at his mug.

"It's not that I think he should be pardoned or anything, you know," he told Ron after a moment.  "I know exactly what you're saying and I agree with every word of it.  It's just … I'll never know now if there was something we could have done to stop Malfoy becoming a Death Eater.  Because we didn't try, did we?"

"Do you seriously think he would have taken any notice?" Ron asked dryly.

"Possibly not, but we don't _know_ that, do we?"

"Harry," Ron said gently, "when are you going to give yourself a break and stop guilt-tripping over the war?  You know perfectly well that Malfoy wouldn't have listened to you, of all people.  He didn't listen to Dumbledore, or even Snape, and they had far more influence over him than you ever did."

"Maybe I should have tried anyway," Harry said stubbornly.

Ron sighed and picked up the broom handle again.  "Okay, try this for size: You're allowed to make mistakes occasionally, especially when you're young."

"Mistakes that cost people their lives and sanity?"

"You are _not_ responsible for the war, Harry.  Dumbledore and Voldemort have to take responsibility for that one.  And if you're at fault for not trying hard enough with Malfoy, then how much more at fault was Dumbledore for not trying with Tom Riddle?"  Ron huffed a breath.  "Besides, there's a point where people have to take responsibility for the choices they make for themselves.  Sometimes those choices are bad ones, but there's no one to blame for it but the chooser.  Malfoy wasn't a kid and he wasn't mentally unsound when he took the Dark Mark, so there's only himself to blame for what happened.  And for you to keep whipping yourself for it is a bit perverse, if you want my opinion.  If you want to do penance for having killed a few Death Eaters during the war, then I still think you're a bit daft but it's your business.  But blaming yourself for Malfoy becoming a Death Eater is something I won't listen to."

 

xXx

 

"I don't go to the memorial services either," Lupin observed tiredly, as he moved around the little kitchen in his flat.

He lived behind one of the 'establishments' in Karne Alley, a place that Harry had only ever been peripherally aware of until the first time his father's friend had invited him for tea.  It wasn't nearly as nefarious an area as Mrs. Weasley would have him believe; indeed the flat Lupin lived in was roomy, clean and comfortable and obtained for a very modest rent.  The reputation of Diagon Alley's red light district had some benefits - including, Lupin observed humorously, enough human interest to satisfy his people-watching habit.

"I'm surprised how many of us don't attend."  Harry sipped his tea thoughtfully.

"Memorial services are really reminders to the general populace.  Many of us who were there don't need reminding and don't need a fixed date to pay our respects.  Besides, everyone reacts to these things in different ways."  Lupin set a dish of small cakes between them and sat down.  "You shouldn't blame Ron for not wanting to forgive Draco Malfoy, you know," he said, abruptly returning to the original subject of their conversation.  "I don't know that I harbour many sympathetic feelings for him either."

"I don't blame Ron at all.  I'm just frustrated that I can't explain what _I_ feel about it so that he understands."

"Perhaps he doesn't want to understand," Lupin suggested gently.

"Maybe," Harry admitted, but he wasn't comfortable with this explanation.  "He thinks I'm a masochist," he added, and hoped he didn't sound as piqued as he felt.

"Not the word I would use, but Ron is a plainspoken man."  Lupin looked at him thoughtfully for a moment.  "I'd say that you've become an expert in survivor-guilt, Harry, and that comes as no surprise to me, for Dumbledore was assiduous in training that aspect of your character and then you fell into the hands of someone whose culture apparently makes a virtue of it."

"You have to spend time with Tenlieng to understand his viewpoint," Harry said defensively.

"I'm sure you do.  But if you'll forgive me for saying so, Tenlieng's culture is not yours and in order to successfully integrate his viewpoint into your own life you would have to spend a lot longer than a year with him and probably be more flexible and less easily impressed than you are."

"Um … I don't think I'm offended," was Harry's dry response.

Lupin smiled.  "I hope not.  I'm just saying that I think you've taken your wise old mentor's views a little closer to heart than he intended.  I think he was giving you guidelines to make you think and never intended them to become ideals that would overrule your own adult judgement.  The trouble, as I just pointed out, is that you were trained by a master manipulator to give unusually close respect to the opinions of elderly, powerful wizards.  Tenlieng wouldn't necessarily have recognised that as a problem in you, because his own culture is very different to ours and it's perfectly normal for people in the Far East to accord such respect to their elders."

"If you want to say that I'm wrong about Malfoy - "

"I'm not saying that you're wrong at all," Lupin interrupted.  "I'm just saying that I think you should look very carefully at your own motives for feeling sympathy for him, before you make any judgements about the feelings of others.  If, when you've done that, you can still say in all honesty that you can forgive him, regardless of his actions and his current plight, then … well, I'll admire you for it, Harry, because you'll be a better man than I am."

 

xXx

 

Harry left Lupin's conscious of disappointment.  He knew, however little he liked to admit it, that he had been hoping for some kind of answer or validation from the older man, and instead he had been left naggingly aware that he was more or less proving Lupin's point about his relationships with older wizards.

Questioning Tenlieng's role in his life made him uneasy, in the same way that questioning Dumbledore's role had always made him feel uncomfortable, although the latter had always been harder because so few people were prepared to question Dumbledore.

Harry pondered again Tenlieng's probable reaction to his current dilemma.  But instead he found himself thinking about Ron's reaction to it.  After all, he thought, it wasn't as though Ron had dismissed what he said out of hand, anymore than Lupin had. 

 _Okay, try this for size …._ Ron's voice whispered in his mind.

Try looking at it another way, Harry told himself, as he wandered aimlessly up Diagon Alley.  How would Tenlieng have dealt with Draco Malfoy, if it had been Draco and not Harry who had landed at his feet nearly two decades ago?  How would Tenlieng deal with Draco _now_ , if Draco was in any kind of mental state to be counselled?

"Your brain's leaking."

Harry nearly leapt out of his skin and really it was a wonder that he didn't pull his wand on the speaker and ask questions later.  Ron was laughing like a drain when Harry sagged against the nearest doorpost weakly.

"God, Ron, don't do that to me …."

"Some defence instructor you are!  I've been trailing you all the way up the street."

"I was thinking," Harry said defensively.

"I know, I've been picking the stuffing up since you passed Madam Malkin's …."

Harry swatted at him and Ron jumped out of reach, chuckling. 

"Want to get a bite to eat?  I don't much fancy cooking tonight and Gareth's getting pot-luck at his girlfriend's place."

"You're going to be a grandfather before you know it at this rate," Harry told him, a little maliciously, but his friend only grinned.

"Doubt it.  He says, in a very shocked voice, that he respects her too much for _that_."

The two men looked at each other.

"Yeah, but does _she_ respect _him_ too much for it?" Harry asked, and they both sniggered like schoolboys.

"Come on," Ron said, grabbing Harry's elbow.  "Let's see what they're dishing up at The Crup and Jarvey."

 

xXx

 

The Crup and Jarvey was the kind of place that was frequented, in Lupin's words, "by Aurors and other louche individuals".  You were certainly guaranteed to find an interesting selection of the wizard community in there, ranging from curse-breakers and clockmakers to broomwrights and Hogwarts professors, although you were less likely to meet Ministry officials or members of the pureblood aristocracy (not that there were many of the latter in Britain since the war anyway).

Harry liked it because it wasn't a gathering point for travellers and family groups like The Leaky Cauldron, and it wasn't a pit of a tavern like The Hog's Head in Hogsmeade.  It was possible to have a civilised conversation and even a meal there without marinating in pipe smoke, having to raise your voice to be heard over the squeals of small children, or having the unnerving conviction that you were being eavesdropped from all sides.  And the food was quite edible.

Ron was something of a regular at The Crup and Jarvey, especially lately.  It was handy for his Diagon Alley workshop and the head office of his employers, Cleansweep, and with one son working and the other two at Hogwarts, he was often disinclined to cook for himself in the evenings.  The bar-staff knew his "usual" and there was a table in the corner that he particularly liked -

"You're a creature of habit, aren't you?" Harry remarked, amused, when they arrived at Ron's table at the same time as a pint of his favourite bitter, courtesy of the middle-aged barmaid.  "Just a half of Merlins," he said in response to her raised brow.  "I'm Apparating."

"Something wrong with that?" Ron asked amiably, as he took a seat and picked up his beer.

"Nothing.  It just tickles me, that's all.  You like what you like the way you like it."

Ron stared at him.  "Run that past me again?"

Harry only shook his head, grinning.  The barmaid reappeared with his modest half-pint and a little pad and quill.

"Anything to eat, lovies?  We've a nice lamb casserole tonight, Mr. Weasley, and your favourite toffee pudding for dessert."

Harry managed to control his amusement long enough to order, but Ron had to kick him under the table as soon as the barmaid left.

"Ow!"

"Git!  So I like their toffee pudding - so what?"  Ron took a defiant slurp of his beer. 

"Did I say there was anything wrong with it?  Like I said - you're a creature of habit."  This was too good an opportunity for Harry to let go.  "You're the same in bed."

Ron spluttered.

"And just for the record, I don't have a problem with that either," Harry added.

The casseroles and toffee pudding had arrived before Ron deigned to speak to his friend again.

"Are you going to tell me now why you were cooking your brain-pan out in the street?" he asked.

"Maybe after you've eaten," Harry said dryly.  "I don't want to upset your appetite."

Ron grimaced.  "You haven't been visiting Malfoy again, have you?"

"Nope.  I had tea with Remus."

Ron grunted and applied himself to his casserole, and Harry followed suit.  There was a long pause while they took the edge off their appetites.

"Did you tell Remus about your trip to St. Mungo's yesterday?" Ron asked finally.

"Of course."

Another pause.

"So what did he say?"

"I think he's more or less of the same opinion as you," Harry replied.  "Just not so blunt."

"Always the voice of reason," Ron remarked.  "I don't suppose that's changed your mind though, has it?"

"Do you want me to change my mind?" Harry asked levelly.

Ron hesitated, stirring his meal idly with his fork.

"No," he said finally.  "I want you to stop beating yourself up about stuff like this.  It's too much like just after the war, when you seemed to go round and round like a rat in a cage, looking for answers that were right in front of your face and refusing to listen when people tried to help you."

Harry's first impulse was to angrily snap back that this was _nothing_ like that and that Ron was wilfully misunderstanding him.  But he stopped himself just in time.  Over Ron's shoulder, he could see another pub patron reading a newspaper - not the _Daily Prophet_ , but one of the smaller dailies that had popped up after the war - and on the front page was the picture of him at Dumbledore's funeral that had horrified him that morning.

It was one of many memories that made Harry's face heat with shame even twenty years later.  He hadn't wanted to go to the old man's funeral, he remembered now.  In the closing months of the war, he had hated Dumbledore almost as much as he loved and respected him, and when he died - of heart failure, brought on by the shock of Voldemort's abrupt demise - Harry's reaction had been to fall prey to a storm of self-loathing and hatred of everyone around him. 

It had been Snape who had made him go, when everyone else had given up on him; Snape, who had dragged himself out of what was to become his deathbed at St. Mungo's to attend, and who had lashed Harry with all the rage and withering scorn he was capable of until the teenager had been browbeaten into putting on formal robes and a facsimile of decent respect and mourning for the inevitable photographers at the churchyard.

Harry had hated Snape for that, on top of all the other reasons he felt he had for loathing the man, but looking back he now bitterly wished many things unsaid.  Snape had been right, after all.  It hadn't mattered how he felt about Dumbledore at the end, or how much he had blamed himself for what had happened.  The funeral, after all, hadn't been about Harry Potter.  A great many things in the war and afterwards hadn't been about Harry Potter.

Harry put his fork down and stared into his casserole.

"Tell me something," he said.  "Why the hell didn't one of you strangle me back then?  I must have been a right pain in the arse."

But when he looked up, Ron was grinning at him sympathetically.

"We thought about it, mate," he said, "but it wasn't like it was your fault you were that way."

"I've been trying to think about this Malfoy thing as Tenlieng might," Harry explained, after a moment or two.  "I mean, forgetting what he'd say to me about it and trying to see how he would have dealt with Malfoy if it had been his problem back before Malfoy had the accident."

Ron thought about this for a moment.  "Okay.  I think I follow you.  So what would he have done?"

"Probably much the same as he did with me," Harry admitted.  "Well - minus the drugs detox."

"What did that involve?"

"A potion that made me incredibly sick, followed by lots of hard work as soon as I could stand up straight again.  And no sympathy from the people around me."  Harry smiled ruefully.  "I wasn't too happy about it."

"I don't think Malfoy would go for that at any time," Ron remarked.

"Probably not.  Hard work was Tenlieng's answer to a lot of things.  He thought I was soft, and I don't know that he was wrong."  Harry tore a chunk of nutty brown bread off the small loaf that had been left on a platter between them and buttered it.  "It's hard to be depressed or temperamental when you're bone-deep knackered.  Eventually I got over it all and then he started to talk to me about things."

"Something else Malfoy wouldn't go for," was Ron's dry assessment.

"Maybe not.  I don't know.  I wasn't exactly the most introspective person in those days, was I?"

"You had something Malfoy never had, Harry - you understood the concept of right and wrong.  You might kick off sometimes, but you knew you were in the wrong when you did it.  You didn't expect your family name and money to let you get away with anything and everything.  And you understood that following someone who killed and tortured people was wrong."

"Granted.  But how much of that was Draco being a bad person and how much of it was down to the way he was brought up?"

That gave Ron a pause. 

"I don't suppose we'll ever know," he admitted, after a moment or two.

"That's the question," Harry said.  "All the money and privilege in the world can't give you a good start in life, if your parents are … well, like Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy."

"Sirius's parents were like them," Ron pointed out, "but he knew it was wrong and walked away."

"Well yeah.  But I'm not trying to suggest Malfoy would have been a candidate for sainthood if he'd only had parents like yours.  I'm just saying that he might not have gone so badly wrong if he hadn't been given a crap set of values to start with."

"None of that explains why it's _your_ problem now," Ron reminded him.

Harry didn't have to think about that one anymore.  He already had an answer.

"The trouble with that point of view is that when people like Malfoy go bad, it becomes everyone's problem, one way or another," he said.  "You can't just say "It's not my fault he had crap parents" when someone starts killing people.  Don't get me wrong on this, Ron - I totally agree with what you said about him buying into Voldemort's viewpoint and ideas when he joined the Death Eaters.  I can't say whether he knew one hundred percent what he was getting into, but he must have had a pretty good idea and yet he did it anyway.  And that was his choice, he went into it with his eyes wide open.  But I think we all take a share of the blame for not trying harder to stop him, for not doing something to turn him off the path before he got that far, and - most of all - for not doing more to stop the whole situation escalating to a point where that choice was offered to him.  Because I think if Voldemort had been stopped sooner, if Fudge hadn't stuck his head in the sand and taken half the witches and wizards in Britain with him, this question would be academic.  I don't think I would have liked Malfoy any more now than I ever did, let alone been friends with him, but it would have just been talk.  We'd have grown up and become indifferent to each other."

"And I would still be able to gripe about Percy's stupid bloody cauldron bottoms," Ron said bleakly, and for a while they ate their meals without saying anything.

They were contemplating the toffee pudding before either of them spoke again.

"You can't change what happened, mate," Ron said finally.  "It's a great question to debate, but I still don't see why you have to make yourself suffer by visiting Malfoy now."

Harry considered that as he cut the pudding into two portions and passed Ron his.

"Remus told me to consider my motives," he said.  "He was right.  I went there yesterday out of some kind of misplaced guilt, and that doesn't do me or Malfoy any favours.  _He_ doesn't need my guilt; Merlin, he doesn't know anything about it anymore.  And you were right, going there to whip myself for his sins was more than a bit perverse.  But …."  He gave Ron an apologetic look.  "You won't like this bit."

"Try me," his friend said wryly.

"Remus asked me if I could forgive Malfoy.  And having seen him yesterday and talked to him, I think I can.  Not because he's locked up and pathetic and I feel sorry for him, but because it was all more than twenty years ago and I've moved on.  I'm not asking you to," he said quickly, seeing Ron's frown, "I'm just saying that I think I can.  After all, _we won the war_ , Ron.  They didn't.  I can afford to be magnanimous now, when I'm alive and healthy, with a job and a son and everything rosy."

"Did your Tenlieng bloke ask you to forgive Voldemort?" Ron asked abruptly.

"No," Harry replied.  "He told me to accept Voldemort and move on.  I'm not sure how he felt about western concepts of forgiveness, because his people believe that when a person does something terrible and dies without balancing it out, it becomes a debt that gets carried over into their next life.  That's why he was so hot on me balancing out any deaths I'd caused during the war - he said that if I didn't, the debt in my next life would be a miserable one.  Bitterness and ill feeling also become part of that, but if you can accept what happened and let it go, it doesn't follow you.  But that doesn't change Voldemort's debt.  The western, Christianised idea of forgiveness benefits both parties, but according to Tenlieng's ways I can't discharge someone else's debt - Voldemort created it so Voldemort has to work it off."

"Works for me," Ron said approvingly.

"And me."  Harry dabbed with his spoon at the slick coating of toffee on his pudding.  "Remus was right about something else.  He pointed out that I'm from an entirely different culture to Tenlieng and I have an imperfect understanding of his beliefs at best.  I need to think about that some more.  But I tend to think that whichever why you look at it, it doesn't hurt for me to forgive Malfoy."

"That's your decision," Ron said, with a shrug.  "But you have to understand that I can't see it quite that way.  I'm not saying I think he should be locked up in Azkaban or executed, and I'm not about to organise a mob to go and lynch him in St. Mungo's.  But I'm not going to visit him and empathise with his plight either.  As far as I'm concerned, the situation is what it is and that's the end of the matter.  I'm not going to lose sleep over it."

"Fair enough," Harry said, and he summoned the barmaid.  "I reckon I'll risk another half of Merlins.  You up for another?"

"Just a half.  I'm Apparating too."

For the rest of the meal, they talked about other things.  It wasn't until they were parting at The Crup and Jarvey's front door that Ron mentioned it again.

"So," he said, as he straightened his cloak and checked for his wallet and keys.  "Do you reckon you'll visit Malfoy again?"

The question was surprisingly casual and matter-of-fact, and it took Harry by a surprise.

"I don't know," he admitted.  "I'll think about it.  If I do, it won't be before the summer holidays - I'm tied up with NEWTs and OWLs from now until the end of June."

Ron nodded, then he gave Harry a half-smile.  "If you do," he said, "next time take one of those books Flourish and Blotts produce for blind people - you know, the ones that are charmed to speak?  If he can't read by himself, it can read to him as well as you can when you're not there."

Harry stared at him, not entirely sure that he'd really heard that right.  Ron's wary expression told him not to make a big deal of it, though, so he nodded back.

"That's a really good idea.  I might do that."

Ron fiddled with his keys, looking mildly embarrassed. 

"I'll be up to Hogsmeade in a week or so," he said, changing the subject.  "Want to meet up?"

"No, definitely not," Harry deadpanned.  "I never want to see you when you're in the neighbourhood, you're a bloody nuisance and - "

"Oh, sod off!" Ron told him, grinning.  "Look, I'll have to bag the twins and have lunch with them, just to remind them that they've still got an old dad who gets grey hair when they get a detention, but when I've done with them I'll pop up to the school and see you."

"Just let me know when," Harry agreed, smiling.

 

xXx

 

The sun was just starting to go down when Harry walked back to the school from Hogsmeade.  A lot of the pupils were still out in the grounds and when he heard the barking of a dog, Harry diverted from the path and walked across the meadow that ran down from the school to the edge of the lake, where the giant squid was catching balls thrown by some of the older kids and throwing them back to them.

The second year Gryffindors were throwing objects for Scruffy to chase - a ball, a rubber ring, a length of knotted rope - but when the lurcher caught sight of Harry, he abandoned the game to race up to his master excitedly.

"Hullo, boy!  Have you been a good lad?  Have you?"

Scruffy went two circuits around him, frisking and whimpering like a pup, then threw himself to the ground and rolled over for Harry to scratch his belly.

Sirius came jogging up.  "You're back!  He really missed you, he wouldn't stop whining and I had to let him sleep on my bed."

"Of course you did!" Harry said, amused.  Scruffy rarely slept anywhere else when he slept in Sirius's room.  "Well, it's your neck when the House-elves complain about dog hair on the blankets."  He dug into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a square parcel which he held out to his son.  "Your book.  Remus hadn't forgotten, it only turned up on Friday afternoon.  He was going to owl it to you tomorrow."

"Thanks, Dad."

"Anything else that's in the packet is from him too," Harry added.

Sirius peeled a corner of the brown paper wrapping back curiously and grinned when he saw a small box of marzipan fruits.  "Cool!"

"Don't forget to write him a note," Harry reminded him.

"I'll do it after dinner - "

A distant coo interrupted him; a small gang of Slytherins were standing a short distance away, watching and sniggering.  Harry heard the words _"Daddy's precious boy!"_ crooned just low enough that he couldn't really take exception.  Sirius looked annoyed, but he huffed a breath and rolled his eyes for his father's benefit.

"Ignore them," Harry advised.  "Besides, they're not wrong.  You _are_ my precious boy."

"Urgh, Dad!" Sirius said good-humouredly.  "It's okay.  They can't help it - they haven't had the benefit of an enlightened, cosmopolitan upbringing like me."

"A what!" Harry demanded, amused.

"That's what _Nonna_ Sophia calls it," Sirius explained, with a grin.  _Nonna_ Sophia was his Italian great-grandmother, a venerable and terrifying matriarch whose pronouncements were received by her descendants with a near Biblical reverence. 

"Oh well, I'm not arguing with _Nonna_ Sophia," Harry said dryly.  "I like all my bits and pieces where they are, thanks!"  Sirius laughed at this.  "Okay, Squirt, I'd better go and see what horrors have landed on my desk while I've been gone.  I'll talk to you after dinner, okay?"

"Yep.  See you later, Dad."

Harry felt mildly comforted by this conversation as he watched Sirius jogging back to join his friends by the lake.  The old rivalries were still there and would probably be for evermore, but a similar confrontation between the Houses of his own generation might have ended in an exchange of hexes, while Sirius simply shrugged it off.  Sometimes he worried if he was doing right by his son, especially after a weekend like the one he'd just had, but moments like this eased his mind.  Sirius was a well-balanced kid with a good head on his shoulders.  Unlike his father - and his grandfather for that matter - he could shrug off petty insults.  There was little breeding ground in _him_ for future lethal conflicts.

Which was one thread of Harry's life that even Tenlieng would have to agree had been straightened as much as was humanly possible.

 

 **\- The End -**

 


End file.
